The disclosure relates to a method for controlling a glass sheet heating furnace using information describing a glass load including a plurality of glass sheets. The method includes transporting the glass sheets toward a heating furnace, before thermal treatment, photographing the glass load by a camera to obtain a camera image, sending first information of the camera image to a computer, on the basis of which the computer determines a first value of a dimension of the glass load and selects a value of at least one adjustment parameter of the heating furnace on the basis of the first value before the glass load has been transferred into the heating furnace, and reading second information by a line scanner, which is sent to the computer, on the basis of which the computer determines a second value of the dimension of the glass load.

This disclosure is directed to techniques for utilizing various sensors and models to evaluate glass as it progresses through the tempering process in order to ensure that the tempered glass is of a proper quality. If, according to any of the various sensor measurements, the tempered glass is not of a proper quality, the system may automatically adjust one or more settings in any of the various components of the system in order to bring future panes of tempered glass back to having the proper quality. The system can measure for any number of glass characteristics or system characteristics, including edge quality, vertical flatness, haze, washing process variables, thermal imaging, distortion, blower information, production data, and furnace process data.

A method for heat strengthening or tempering glass sheets of a glass load containing several glass sheets, in which the glass sheets are heated in a furnace to a tempering temperature and the glass load is transferred at a transfer speed (W) away from the furnace into a tempering unit, in which the actual quenching is conducted by blasting cooling air onto both surfaces of the glass sheets. By an initial blasting unit, located between the furnace and the quenching unit and divided into initial blasting zones in the direction transverse to the motion of the glass, is blasted compressed air onto the surface of the leading and trailing edges of a glass sheet, to the direction of which normal it is desired to straighten the end in order to decrease end-edge kink.

An actuating mechanism control method for a glass plate tempering process, comprising: after a glass plate is conveyed into a heating furnace, a monitoring unit monitors in real time energy consumed by a heating element of the heating furnace, and sends the energy consumed to a control unit to compare with a set threshold; and when the energy consumed by the heating element of the heating furnace is greater than or equal to the set threshold, the control unit sends an instruction to an actuating mechanism to control actions of the actuating mechanism to complete a corresponding tempering process procedure. Through the method that the monitoring unit monitors in real time the energy consumed by the heating element of the heating furnace, a heating procedure of the glass plate is more scientifically and precisely controlled, and, therefore, a discharging moment of the glass plate can be accurately determined.

A system for acquiring surface data from one of the surfaces of a curved glass sheet and developing a surface definition of the glass sheet includes a conveyor for conveying the glass sheet in a first direction, at least one display projecting a preselected multi-phase non-repeating contrasting pattern, and at least one camera, each one of the cameras uniquely paired with one of the displays. The system may also include a control programmed to execute logic for controlling each of the camera/display pairs to acquire the desired images, and logic for analyzing and combining the data acquired by the cameras to construct a definition of the surface of the glass sheet.

A method for controlling discharging of a glass plate in a glass plate tempering technology process is provided. After a glass plate is fed into a heating furnace, a monitoring unit monitors and performs filtering on a working parameter of a heating element in real time, and then transmits the filtered working parameter to a control unit. The control unit compares the filtered working parameter with a specified threshold. After the working parameter reaches a maximum value or a minimum value, and then reaches the specified threshold during a subsequent change, the control unit sends an instruction to a drive mechanism. The drive mechanism acts to move the glass plate out of the heating furnace directly or after a time delay, so as to complete a glass plate heating process. The present disclosure changes a conventional time-based control method, reduces energy consumption, and improves quality of a tempered glass.

A glass tempering furnace and a method for heating a glass sheet. The glass sheet is heated in the glass tempering furnace by blowing heating air on the top surface of the glass sheet, and the blowing distance of the heating air from the top surface of the glass sheet is adjusted.

The present disclosure relates to a method for tempering a glass sheet to a surface compressive stress of at least 150 MPa, without hair cracks, to optically good quality and energy-efficiently. Quenching is carried out when the glass sheet travels through a quenching section by blowing air jets on upper and lower surfaces of the glass sheet by a blower, through blowing apertures in the cover of a blowing box and by air compressor pressure through pipe nozzles. In the quenching section, both above and below the glass sheet, are at least three successive compressed air convection blowing zones with separately adjustable blowing pressures. Zone-specific differences in the heat transfer coefficient are implemented by changing the blowing pressures of the pipe nozzles.

A method for evaluating the sensitivity of a glazing to forming quench marks depending on its anisotropy, the sensitivity being evaluated by computing parameter σ.sub.v, the quench marks resulting from different optical phase shifts in different regions of the glazing for a vision in transmission or reflection and from either side of the glazing, the method including computing a transmission parameter T1, T2 through face 1 or 2 or a reflection parameter R1, R2 from face 1 or 2, this computation being done for a region of the glazing without optical phase shift and for a region of the glazing inducing an optical phase shift δ; computing a parameter ΔE(δ) corresponding to the color difference between said regions, based on at least one of T1, T2, R1, R2, and computing σ.sub.v by applying a function G dependent on computed ΔE(δ) and where appropriate on the one or more corresponding δ.

The present disclosure relates to a tempering furnace for a glass sheet, which has a conveyor for the glass sheet, first convection blow means over the conveyor to heat the glass sheet by hot air jets blown on its top and/or bottom surface, and second convection blow means to help lead pressurized air from outside the tempering furnace to second blow nozzles from which air is discharged as jets towards the top and/or bottom surface of the glass sheet. The heating effect of the air jets on the glass sheet is adjustable by adjusting the feeding of electric current to electric elements inside blowing channels. Blow nozzles of the second convection blow means form blow zones. The heating effect on the glass sheet of the jets discharged from the second blow nozzles inside the blow zones is adjustable by adjusting the blowing pressure of feed pipes.